Two days ago was my birthday; I turned 65. Sound the noisemakers and poppers. A quiet and pleasant enough day. It's almost 2 months now since I stopped smoking. Haven't cheated, still moving along with it. Diet starts right after New Years.

And the big news, the GREAT news - the mortgage for Tom & Andrew's country house got the final approval Friday morning. It's all engines on and full speed ahead now. Closing will be scheduled in a few days and the house will be theirs for Xmas. Yay!!!!!

I am so happy for them. I am kvelling like crazy for them. Absolutely shepping nachas for them. They have all worked so incredibly hard to reach this point. This is such a great way for Andrew & Joanna to go into the new year.

In other excellent news, my daughter Astrid has a new terrific job. Her base is in Basel, Switzerland but she'll also be working out of several other project centres including NJ this week. So yes, Asti is in the Metro NY area working this week and visiting family during her down time.

I presume I'll hear more news from other family members at some point. I refuse to allow facebook to take over family communications. I loathe how people utterly expose themselves on FB. This blog is as public as I plan to get.

Enough for now. I need to look through some seed catalogs.